


The Second Death

by dracox_serdriel



Category: Supernatural, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Episode: s06e09 No Way Out, Episode: s07e23 Survival of the Fittest, F/F, F/M, M/M, superdead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2018-08-11 16:11:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7899367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracox_serdriel/pseuds/dracox_serdriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean and Castiel take down big daddy Leviathan Dick Roman, the blast catapults them into a special kind of hell, where the living must survive in in a post-apocalyptic world filled with the Walking Dead. </p><p>Desperate to learn how long they've been gone and what happened in their absence, Dean and Cas search for any sign of what went wrong, which is difficult in a world where all infrastructure has failed and strangers can't be trusted. Together they search for Sam Winchester in the middle of an apocalypse that's managed overrun the planet, and they're more than a little surprised to run into a group of survivors that'd give most Hunters a run for their money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

> **Note** : _The Second Death_ was started originally as part of Dean/Cas Big Bang 2016, but I discovered that the story was much longer (and larger) than I anticipated so I had to drop out of the challenge. I'll be posting it as I proof it before moving on to the latter (unwritten) half of the story. 
> 
> **Supernatural Spoilers** : _The Second Death_ includes references to events, characters, and themes that occur on the show through episode 07x23 "Survival of the Fittest."
> 
>  **Walking Dead Spoilers** : _The Second Death_ includes references to events, characters, and themes that occur on the show through episode 06x09 "No Way Out."

Dean Winchester was lying on the cold, hard ground, vaguely aware that he didn't belong there, but his consciousness returned to him in fits and starts. One moment, the sensation of grass and dirt under his hands became palpable, and the next, numbness and blackness descended, forcing him into a pendulous state between concerned confusion and the bliss that came from the fog of sleep.

"Wake up!" Castiel yelled.

The urgency in his voice spurred Dean out of his complacency. His eyes snapped open, and he sat up. A whirl of dizziness stopped him from standing.

"Good," Cas commented. "We need to get out of here."

The angel's voice had a clarity that it hadn't had since his stint in the loony bin. Dean wasn't sure if that was reassuring or worrying.

The hunter stood, looking around in an attempt to assess the situation. He recognized nothing.

"Where are we?" Dean asked.

"I have no idea."

The hunter reexamined his surroundings. The overgrown grass was thick and green, and the trees and other plants in their general vicinity had been placed in intervals, a clear arrangement of parts. SucraCorp was more parking lot than anything else because leviathan didn't give a shit about landscaping.

"You bring us here?" Dean asked Cas.

The angel's brow knit together in bewilderment as his eyes darkened. When he shifted his hands to his hips, the trench coat opened enough to reveal the uniform provided by the mental asylum he had resided in not long ago. The expression on his face was a stark contrast to his recent transformation into an oddball pacifist with a ridiculously strong love of bees.

"If I brought us here, I would know where we were," Cas replied.

"You think Dick Roman did this?" the hunter asked, resisting the urge to reply with a snide remark. "Last thing I remember is him exploding."

"We should be dead," Cas said mildly.

"Come again?"

"The weapon we used was ancient and powerful, devised by God himself," the angel explained. "Mortals rarely survive an encounter with such things. Slaying such a powerful leviathan - "

"Whoa, hang on!" Dean interrupted. "You're saying we could've died?"

"Our plan was to infiltrate a building full of monsters that not only predate angels but are more powerful than them as well. The likelihood of failure was incredibly high. Our deaths were a near certainty."

Dean gritted his teeth. Castiel had gone from a five-year-old bouncing off the walls to a monotonous stooge of heaven in the blink of the eye. All the personality changes were giving him whiplash. 

"Why didn't you mention that this weapon would ice the person using it before?" he asked.

"It hadn't occurred to me until a few minutes ago," the angel replied.

Dean decided to drop the topic for now, as they were both still alive and needed to figure out where the hell Sam and Kevin had gone. He grabbed one of the burner phones from his jacket, but when he held it out, it had 'NO SERVICE' across the screen. He searched his pockets for another, only to find it also had nothing. Five phones across every carrier on the planet, and not one of them had any signal.

"What the hell?" he muttered. He turned to Cas and asked, "You getting anything from Sam of Kev?"

Cas gave him an incredulous look before he replied, "Both your brother and the prophet have sigils carved into their ribs that prevent any angel from tracking them, and neither has prayed or called."

Dean sized Cas up, unsure of how to ask his next question. He'd never been any good with that kind of crap, and he wasn't going to figure it out now, in some random-ass field with a half-cocked angel.

"You don't sound crazy anymore," Dean said bluntly.

"That is because I am no longer 'crazy,'" Cas replied, correctly applying sarcastic air quotations. "Unfortunately."

"So, you're not off your rocker anymore," he said. "Gotta say, I thought you'd be happier about it."

"I am no longer mentally stunted from the anguish and torment visited upon me from absorbing the centuries-long retribution that my brother visited upon yours," Cas replied. "And now those memories are no longer blunted."

Castiel's monotone and flat affect delivered his admission like a punch to the gut. Dean had watched Sam bow under that suffering until it broke him, yet Cas stood before him, miserable perhaps, but not crushed or defeated. 

"Look, we gotta find Sam and Kev," Dean said after a very long, awkward silence. "Shouldn't be too hard to find the nearest gas station or convenience store. Come on."

Then he started walking with determination. He didn't know which direction he was going or where he was, but he figured it wouldn't be long before they found someone who could give them directions.

It took about thirty minutes of power walking to hit a road. Any hope of flagging somebody down disappeared after a few minutes of waiting. There was nothing but silence and wind, and the road was devoid of traffic. From the looks of it, cars didn't come through here very often.

"Come on," Dean said. "This must lead somewhere."

So they turned and followed the road, though there was no reason to think they'd encounter a car. Dean had driven roads like this a thousand times, and more often than not, the Impala was the only vehicle in sight. It was like that with a lot of the thoroughfares that cut through the countryside.

The sun started to go down, and Dean decided that enough was enough.

"Okay, you need to zap us somewhere," he said abruptly. 

"That would be unwise," the angel replied.

"Unwise?" Dean repeated. "I haven't seen a sign on this road yet. It could be a hundred miles before we hit a town. It's getting dark, and I'm fresh out of flashlights."

"Three," Cas said.

"What?"

"Three miles up the road, there is a barn and a gas station," he explained. "We've walked much farther than that already."

Dean rolled his eyes. He would never admit it out loud, but he was grateful that there was something ahead. None of his burners had any service, and he really needed to wash up. He picked up the pace, anticipating pie and all the other convenience store food he loved so much, ignoring his brother's nagging about not consuming anything with corn syrup, since they had to assume that the leviathan tainted the entire country's supply.

Still, a man could dream of a great big slice of cherry pie.

They passed the barn first, which was worse for the ware. It was covered in new patching planks, as if someone had fixed it up, but the structure itself didn't appear to be that old. Cas investigate it, running his fingers over the siding, and he detected blood and decayed flesh. It was in tiny quantities here and there, and it had been there for weeks.

"Cas, come on," Dean said. "The barn isn't gonna have a phone."

Castiel had drawn the same conclusion. Recently, in the last month, someone reinforced the damaged walls and covered all the windows with good, solid wood, but that was only after someone - or, more likely, several someones - had literally clawed their way into the barn, leaving behind bits of fingernail, skin, and blood.

"Cas?" Dean asked as he doubled back. "You got something?"

"No," the angel replied. "Let's go."

Dean knew something was amiss, but he wasn't sure if it was something he needed to know about. For all he knew, Cas had triggered some long-lost hell memory and needed a minute to collect himself. It made more sense than being genuinely concerned about the state of some barn. So they continued without another word about it, and they soon reached the gas station.

It was closed.

No, worse, it was abandoned. Several makeshift signs read "OUT OF GAS, MOVE ON." They were posted all over, and from the state of them, they'd been there a while. They continued to the door of the store even though it was dark inside. Dean peeked in. The place was in disarray because the shelves had been emptied none too carefully. 

"Looks like the place was looted," he commented.

Before he could smash the door's window open to get to the inside handle, Castiel twisted the doorknob.

It was open.

"Seriously?" Dean asked. "Haven't these people hurt of locks?"

Castiel went in, and Dean followed. 

"Hello?" Dean said loudly. "Our car broke down. We could really use some help!"

"I don't think anyone's been here in a very long time," Cas said.

"Sure looks like it," Dean replied. "Except for that."

He pointed to the refrigerated storage. Nothing was inside, yet there was condensation on the glass. It was still on.

They moved noiselessly through the tiny store, first through every isle, then to the backroom and then onto the basement. No one was there.

The sun went down, leaving them in darkness until Dean discovered a flashlight that had been left in the backroom.

"Still no reception," Dean said as he checked his burner phones. 

"The landline doesn't have that sound it's supposed to," Cas said, holding up an old fashion rotary dial phone.

"It's not plugged in," Dean said. "We gotta find a phone jack."

The growling of his stomach interrupted his next thought.

"You need something to eat," the angel said. "Take the flashlight and find something. I'll search for this phone jack."

Normally, the hunter would've rejected the idea, mostly because Cas didn't seem to know what a phone jack was, let alone where to start looking for one, but he was too damn hungry to bother.

Dean discovered a few canned goods and an old bag of Doritos in the basement, along with a few bottles of water. The Doritos had expired in 2010, which predated the leviathans, so he figured it was safe. All in all, it wasn't takeout, but it was something. He used the backroom's microwave to make the soup he'd found, though he enjoyed eating the cranberry sauce right out of the can. Sammy would flip his lid if he saw that.

"Any luck on that phone jack?" Dean asked when Cas returned.

"Yes," he replied, pointing to a pile of books on a shelf. "Behind there."

He then proceeded to sweep everything unceremoniously off the shelf to reveal the jack in the wall. He placed the phone there and connected the wire. 

Dean picked it up and heard the dial tone droning. He was impressed.

He dialed every number he had for his brother, and none of them connected. He didn't even get that annoying message about the caller you've reached not being available. He'd dial the number, hear a few clicks, and then nothing. He wondered if old phones like this had some kind of 'send' button he didn't know about. 

"Let me," Cas said.

Dean shrugged and let the angel try the phone. He stopped him after he dialed nine-one because he had a sneaking suspicion that the next number would also be a one, and there was no way in hell he was going to explain to the police why he was in an abandoned gas station covered in blood, sweat, and black goo.

"What the hell, Cas?"

"Is there another method to checking the functionality of the phone lines?" he asked.

Dean thought hard. He knew there were numbers you could call for the time, date, and temperature, but for all he knew, that had vanished when cell phones became the norm. Hell, he couldn't remember the last time he used a landline, let alone how to check if it was connecting with others.

"Fine," he growled. "But if they pick up, you can't just hang up. You gotta tell them you don't need help. Otherwise they'll send someone here."

The angel nodded and dialed the last number.

The phone rang. 

And rang.

And rang.

It kept ringing, but no one picked up. Eventually, Cas hung up.

"So, we ice Dick Roman and wind up somewhere completely deserted," Dean said. "You think the levis used this place for their testing?"

Castiel considered the suggestion. If people had locked themselves inside the barn, a leviathan would've punched through the wall, not scratched at the windows. The people inside might've tried to claw their way out, not in. 

"I'm not sure," he replied. "Maybe."

"Right, well, it's too damn dark for me to see or do anything," Dean said. "How about you zap - "

"Sleep," Cas interrupted.

"What?"

"You sleep for approximately three to five hours a night," the angel said. "Your sleep deficit is tremendous."

"Sammy and Kev are missing, and you want me to get my beauty sleep?"

"You just said it's too dark for you to do anything."

"Yeah, which is why I was gonna say you need to zap us somewhere with electricity."

Cas put two fingers to Dean's forehead, and the hunter fell asleep instantly, collapsing boneless into the angel's arms. He carried him up to the attic. It was awkwardly short and mostly empty, save for a few blankets and cushions. Once he made sure Dean was safe, he yanked the ladder out of its place, making it impossible for anyone to enter.

The angel knew there was danger, but he couldn't identify it. He had sensed it since the moment they arrived here, wherever 'here' was. The constant stillness and silence wasn't natural, and he worried that any people they met would be more dangerous than a hungry vampire. That was the real reason he insisted on Dean's slumber.

The suggestion to teleport was sensible, but his internal world map was out of sync. His mind kept track of hotspots, certain key areas of the world, including the most recent Winchester safe house, the largest cities, and the few places where angels congregated on the earth. When he attempted to transport the unconscious Winchester to a safe place earlier that day, he realized that nothing was where it should be.

It was dangerous to call upon his more ancient angelic powers. Unlike teleportation and healing, the angels would sense it and know his exact location in seconds, and demons and leviathan alike would be able to track him. He cast a glance over to Dean sleeping on a pile of cushions and decided it was worth the risk. 

He reached out and made contact with the hunter, his anchor, hoping it would enable him to sense Sam, though the rib carvings would make that nearly impossible. He let his hand wrap around Dean's forearm anyway. There was something immensely comforting in the simple act of touch.

Then Castiel tapped into that power born only to the Seraphim, his sight extended a hundred thousand fold, covering the entire face of the earth, his grip on Dean's arm tightening protectively as he realized there were no demons, no descendants of Eve, no deities, no witches, no spirits, nothing supernatural in this world, save for the last angel and his hunter.


	2. The Chosen Few

Dean woke up in a dark, empty room sprawled across some seriously uncomfortable cushions. He scrunched up his face in confusion when he saw the blankets covering him, which were a combination of Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles and an ugly paisley pattern. He felt warm. No, he felt good.

Over the years, Dean had developed his own indicators for detecting dangerous scenarios when not at capacity. Coming to in an unknown location with no injury or symptoms of a hangover was a death-con-one alert in his mind. Thus, he jolted up out of his improvised bed, cracking his head against the incredibly low ceiling.

"Sonovabitch!"

He rubbed his forehead where it cracked against the ceiling, his head smarting from the impact. He shoved the sheets off and discovered that he was still fully dressed, down to his heavy boots.

There was a hatch in the floor a few feet away, so he was in some kind of crawl space. That would explain why he couldn't sit up, let alone stand. He ignored his throbbing head and made for the exit, shoving it open.

"Damnit!"

There weren't any stairs or a ladder, just a full story-and-a-half drop to the floor below. He didn't have a lot of options, so he didn't waste time thinking about it. He swung his feet over the side and wiggled into the opening, lowering himself as far as possible to shorten the fall. He probably looked like an idiot, dangling from the ceiling in rumpled and dirty clothing.

He grunted as he dropped to the floor, and his feet ached in protest. The only good news was that he was still inside the gas station.

"You're awake," Castiel said.

He was sitting on the couch, waiting, and as soon as Dean saw him, he remembered how he fell asleep the night previous.

"What the hell, Cas?"

Without replying, the angel handed him a faded and ragged edition of _The Virginia Rural Times_ , dated September 30, 2012.

"September?" he read out loud. "Are you trying to tell me we've been MIA for four months? Where the hell did you find this?"

From the state of the pages, he knew that it wasn't current, which meant they'd probably been gone for a lot longer than just a few months.

"That paper is approximately twenty-one months old," Cas replied. "I discovered it in an abandoned building five miles down the road."

Dean scanned the headlines and began flipping through the paper, looking for some indication that it was an April's Fools Joke or a fabrication, but everything about it was authentic. He scanned the headlines and stopped when he read: EVACUATION OF ALL RESIDENTS. 

There was nothing in the way of explanation; instead, the article detailed various destinations. Fairfax County residents were to evacuate to Fort Belvois, but to prevent dangerous traffic conditions, everyone was encouraged to arrive at a refugee port so they could be transported with maximum safety and efficiency.

Most of the other articles outline basic survival tips and warned people to remain behind barricaded doors at all times, especially at night. There was information about identifying contaminated water and even a short article warning against scams for counterfeit canned goods.

In his general experience, the media emphasized terror and fear because it sold papers. It was baffling to see so many articles about an apocalyptic-like situation without one damn reference as to the cause.

"What the hell?" Dean asked.

"I was not able to discover much else last night," the angel replied. "Other than the supernatural does not exist on this world and hasn't for a long time."

* * *

The conversation hadn't gone well. It took over an hour to convince Dean that they were in some kind of altered world where demons, monsters, and angels hadn't appeared for many years. It was a particularly exhausting affair because Cas had spent all night trying to contact other angelic beings. 

After a lot of unnecessary shouting, they were finally able to agree that wherever they were, they needed to find a car, food, and better shelter.

"And we need to find Sam and Kev," Dean added.

"Given the absence of supernatural entities, it is highly unlikely that the Prophet of the Lord exists," Cas pointed out.

"And what about Kevin Tran?" Dean barked. "He doesn't count if he's not the prophet?"

"Kevin Tran would have no reason to cross paths with the Winchesters," the angel explained. "He's probably completely safe in Michigan."

"And Sammy?" Dean asked. "You think he's some attorney, married with two kids?"

"I don't know."

"So, you don't know where we are, how we got here, what kind of bad went down to make this place completely empty, or if Kev and Sammy are nearby," Dean said, clearly displeased. "Is there anything we do know?"

His stomach growled loudly.

"You require sustenance," Cas replied.

"What about you?"

"Have you forgotten that angels don't require food?"

"You said angels don't exist here," Dean said. "What if it's like during the Apocalypse. You lost your mojo because of the... connection or whatever to Heaven."

"I cannot predict if that will be the case," Cas said. "As of right now, my vessel does not require food or drink to survive."

"Did you see any vehicles we could use last night?"

"One of the refugee centers is only twenty miles from here and has many abandoned vehicles."

Dean made quick work of the last of the canned foods he'd found the night before, which was some sickly sweet orange slices and a can of beef and rice soup. It wasn't all that satisfying a meal, but it was better than nothing. Once he was done, Cas teleported them into a thicket of trees.

"I thought we were going to the refugee center," Dean complained. 

"It's just over that field," Cas replied. "This was the closest place to land with cover."

"Cover?" Dean repeated. "Cas, man, no one else is here."

The hunter had a point, for as far as Castiel knew, this area had been deserted for a while. Yet he felt the need to take precautions and keep his powers hidden. They walked passed the trees and through the field in silence. Up ahead, there as a parking lot filled with all kinds of vehicles, from school buses to tractors. 

Everything had collected a heavy line of dust, and as they approached, they saw that there had been recent disturbances. The tires had been removed from a few cars, and all the buses had been picked over from engine parts to seat padding. Many of the trucks and cars had been broken into, and, if the handful of car-sized vacancies in the lot were any indication, a few had probably been stolen.

"People just left all this here?" Dean asked. "Seems weird that no one came back for some of these."

"Perhaps the evacuation relocated them permanently," Cas suggested.

"If that's the case, then who did all this? We obviously weren't the first who've come through here since. Gonna make our job a lot harder."

"What do we require?" Cas asked awkwardly.

"From the looks of the streets, we're gonna need something that can handle off-roading. Trucks, cars with some clearance," Dean reeled off. When he saw Cas's confusion, he added, "Anything that is high off the ground would work. Then it's about what we can get started."

They spent the next few hours scouring the lot, identifying possible cars. Dean managed to find a partial toolkit hidden inside a compartment on one of the muscle cars. Some of the less commonly used tools had been removed to make room for a small handgun and ammo.

Neither one mentioned how creepy the place felt. The area was absolutely silent, and Dean's hand never strayed far from his machete. The refugee center itself was little more than a module that had been set up in the adjacent field, and after wasting an hour exploring it, Dean found a few candy bars that expired in twenty-ten.

Happy to have something to eat, the Winchester set to work wiring cars. He quickly discovered that none had much gasoline, so he gave Cas the task of siphoning whatever he could. There was nothing like his Impala on the lot, but there were a few cars that he could make work. In the end, the vehicle in the best condition was a pickup truck. It could seat five or six people in the cab, though it was a tight squeeze, and the back had a decent cap that no one had bothered to steal. There was also a spare tire, a few blankets, and a very old cooler filled with canned beer.

The truck did have the best tires and two working headlights, but in truth, Dean picked it because none of the windows had been smashed in. Everything was much easier when he didn't have to deal with broken glass. He checked the engine and found a few old lines and caps. Normally that kind of work would take him an hour, tops, but every time he saw that something needed to be replaced, he had to scavenge for a substitute. Still, he'd rather put in the time now than have the thing break down on the road at an inopportune moment.

Cas kept returning with the most random things: backpacks, ropes, toilet paper, hauling chains, and the occasional Jerry Can of gasoline. Anything the angel thought might be useful was placed either beside the truck or under the cap.

His work finished, Dean turned his attention to the previously discovered cooler. The ice inside had long-since melted, so he emptied it and opened a lukewarm beer. It wasn't a great brand to begin with, and age and heat made it watery, but it was just want he needed.

"Cas, something tells me we won't need a broom or empty cans," Dean said as the angel returned with his most recent haul.

"I've only managed to acquire a hundred gallons of gasoline," Cas replied. "I've siphoned every vehicle in the lot."

Dean pointed to the Jerry cans and asked, "These are all full?"

Cas nodded his head, yes. "All the larger vehicles had one, but most were empty."

"Don't worry about it, Cas, a hundred gallons will get us pretty far," he replied. "We should pack up."

The angel packed the car rapidly while Dean filled the tank with gas. As soon as he was done, Cas tied the Jerry Cans together and secured them under the cap.

"You in a rush?" Dean asked, somewhat amused.

"Beyond vegetation, there is no sign of life anywhere," Cas said. "A lack of human population does not mean silence nor emptiness. In fact, without humans to slaughter them or scare them away, insects, birds, mammals should all be in abundance."

"So, this place creeps you out?"

"That is one way of putting it," the angel said tersely. "We should - "

Cas stopped speaking because the horrible smell of decay and blood picked up with the wind, paired with a cacophony of approaching groans and gasps. He turned his attention to the source of the noise, which was the field they crossed to get to the lot.

Dean lifted his machete, but his hand faltered when he saw that what approached them was neither demon nor monster but rather the rotting, animated corpse that was once a person - down to the inelegant style of dress - but now it was putrid, thoughtless, and, above all else, very, very hungry.

Castiel and Dean had both encountered zombies, revenants, spirits, and other creatures that were once human beings, but these were different.

"So much for nothing supernatural," Dean mused.

"That thing isn't supernatural."

"It's a zombie," Dean retorted. "Zombies are supernatural."

The hunter was disappointed. He had expected a big bad monster, and this just didn't qualify. 

"Keep packing, I'll take care of it," he said to Cas. 

He strolled out to the edge of the parking lot and waited for it to come to him. Once it was within reach, he swung his machete and decapitated it. Noticing that it was still snapping its teeth on the ground, he jabbed the blade into its severed head for good measure. It stopped moving.

He had been so caught up in his disappointment and dispatch of the zombie that he failed to recognize that the silence was gone. He hadn't even registered the gasping sounds as dangerous.

"Dean," Cas said from the truck. "We need to get out of here."

"What, you think this is contagious?" Dean said jokingly as he wiped off his blade.

That was when the hunter saw a dozen other zombies, all coming from the same direction as the first, trickling into view from the tree line and stumbling across the field. Their number quickly doubled, then tripled, as they came closer. There were men in overalls, women in broken high heels, children in their Sunday best, and people in pajamas. More and more arrived, and Dean had no reason to assume there weren't a hundred or a thousand more just out of sight.

Dean didn't know what possessed him to do it. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't had real food in the past day. Maybe it was the lack of other people in the general vicinity. Maybe he was still spoiling for a fight after the big leviathan showdown. Whatever the reason, he didn't listen to Cas and return to the car. Instead, he chose the best place to handle the next wave of the undead and stood his ground.

He noticed a number of things about them as they closed in. One, they weren't quick. Two, they zeroed in on him. Three, they weren't stealthy. He and Cas should've noticed them gathering because they seemed to make noise constantly. 

A gaggle of them approached, and he slashed them with his machete, angling for headshots every time. They must've been more rotted than he realized because his machete passed straight through their skulls. He didn't mind being splattered or the pile of bodies that formed as wave after wave came to him. He lost count of how many he'd taken out when his arm began to tire. Thirty? Fifty? Yet no matter how many he felled, the others continued to attack.

 _Guess they aren't smart either_ , he thought.

His arm was getting tired, and the pile of corpses around him forced him to back up so his line of sight wasn't impeded because a few of these undead things were creepy-crawlers, dragging themselves across the ground. He wasn't about to let some ankle-biter get the best of him.

There was a rumbling noise that caught the attention of every undead douchebag in the immediate area, followed by screeching wheels. Castiel pulled the truck onto the grass behind him. Dean finished off the five that were too close to outrun, then he turned to the passenger side door and yanked it open.

One of the rotting corpses grabbed hold of his jacket before he could get inside, its rank breath billowing over him as it snapped its teeth, trying to bite him, but Cas threw something like a javelin into its eye. Dean shoved it away, climbed inside, and slammed the door behind him, and they drove off.

Dean got a good look at his handiwork in the rearview mirror. There was a wall of bodies piled up in front of where he made his first stand, and there were a few smaller piles on either side where he was forced to back up. He must've put down a hundred of those things.

"Damn that felt good," he said.

"I'm glad it provided entertainment," Cas said tersely. "There were hundreds of those things, Dean."

"Hundreds?" Dean asked. "Guess we know why this area was evacuated."

"Those things want to eat us alive," the angel pointed out. "And we only have a hundred gallons of gas."

The adrenaline from the fight was tapering off. He was tired and hungry, and for all they knew, people hadn't lived in this area for years. He might be living off expired canned foods and candy bars for a very, very long time. 

"Well, we're good for now," he said. 

There was no way that either of them could've known that, at that very minute, someone was following them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters from the Walking Dead will appear in the next chapter.


	3. So Many Songs

Daryl never liked being inside, behind gates or walls. Hell, even closed up cars bothered him, which was why he had always opted for a motorcycle over a truck.

If he could live with no walls, he'd do it, but there was no way to survive without something keeping the walkers out. Trouble was, barriers put a target on the community. That's why some people set up mazes, roadblocks, and walker traps instead of using fences and gateways. It kept the walkers away without highlighting their location for the human predators out there.

He'd been wary ever since his experience with the fuckers who stole his damn bike and crossbow. He thought he had the measure of them. They were descent enough people, given the circumstances. It would've been much easier for them to kill him than tie him up and march him around, yet they opted to keep him alive. He had offered them a place to live, and they doubled-crossed him because better the devil they know, right?

 _Fuck_ , he thought.

It still pissed him off, even thinking about it weeks later.

Normally, Glenn would handle supply runs, but Daryl needed out of Alexandria for a few days. Aaron had wanted to assist because they might find new people, but Daryl wasn't interested. They could meet Mother Theresa, and he wouldn't trust her enough to tell her his name. He didn't have the headspace for bringing back anybody, and he sure as fuck didn't want company.

Rick insisted. Michonne insisted. Everybody insisted. After the wolves and the walker horde, nobody was supposed to be wandering outside the walls on their own. Daryl made all kinds of excuses, but it didn't matter. He was close to dropping it and sneaking out on his own when Carol volunteered to partner up with him. Everybody backed down real quick after that.

She'd saved their asses when Alexandria was attacked, giving up her cover as the invisible, helpless den mother. He knew she needed some escape, too, and unlike everybody else who wanted to come along, she wasn't company. Carol never expected him to talk, and she didn't make him listen to endless prattle. They took the old station wagon and headed south, the opposite direction that they had led the Quarry Walkers. Olivia plied them with snacks that didn't look like food, and Rick handed them a map all marked up.

They wound up going farther south then they should've. He blamed the backcountry roads and the map, and Carol didn't disagree. They assessed their route and realized it made more sense to continue south until they hit a main road, then cross west and head north. They could hit a dozen so-called refugee centers in this area. If Deanna was right and this area had been evacuated early on, then a ton of useable supplies would've been abandoned and likely untouched.

It was a damn wild goose chase. He knew it. Carol knew it, but here they were with nothing but a box of clothing in the trunk and a few bottles of water so far for their troubles.

"Looks like someone beat us to it," Carol said, pointing ahead. "Some are still here."

"How many?"

"I can see two," she replied as she peeked through her binoculars. 

They weren't being quiet at all. Daryl couldn't make out what they were saying, but their voices carried.

"There must be more of them."

"Let'em have it," Daryl grunted. "We can circle back and go around these assholes, hit the next one."

"Thirty miles northeast of here," she said.

He started the car.

"Wait," Carol said. "Walkers. A lot of them."

She handed the binoculars over, and Daryl watched as a man in a leather jacket casually approached a walker and decapitated it. A herd started for this guy, and he just stood his ground, hacking and slashing. Daryl checked the grounds, assuming that the only reason for something like that was buying time for other people. But all he found was one man in a trench coat loading supplies into a truck.

He handed the binoculars back when the second guy pulled the truck around.

"We should follow them," Carol said.

"Nah, we're not out here for people."

"Even if the people are two men who scavenged that entire lot in less than a few hours?"

"We don't know that. They could've been there since last night."

"They're headed north," Carol said.

"Fine, we'll keep an eye on 'em, but only so long as they're headed north," Daryl replied shortly.

Carol didn't comment on his newfound suspicion for strangers, nor did she mention that these two were obviously alone. Their clothing was dirty, probably worn for days, and from what she saw, one of them had restored a truck with scavenged materials. Maybe they were getting back to their camp after a long trip, but she doubted it.

"Was it just me, or did they seem careless?" she asked.

"Parked, what, a mile away from 'em? I could hear 'em," he replied. "Attracted every damn walker for miles but handled themselves fine. Probably don't give a damn."

"Overconfident?"

"Yeah, or just plain stupid," he replied.

They followed at a safe distance, occasionally losing the truck for a few miles before the road opened up again. There was nothing but trees and the empty street for a very long time.

"We coming up on that other refugee center?" he asked.

"Yeah, left turn up here. Then the first right, looks like."

The men in the truck were headed the same way, but that didn't surprise either of them. The next center was on the edge of town, near the downtown area. He had half a mind to skip it and go on to the next one, but Carol seemed set on it. She was right to be. Even if the module was empty, there were stores that might still be untouched. 

The pickup pulled straight into town, but Daryl went around, circling the area for a good spot to hide the car. There was high ground to the south and some trees, which gave them some shade as well as a good place cover up the vehicle. Carol noticed all the extra precautions, but she said nothing and followed his lead.

They walked quietly toward the main strip, which was just behind the module, but they didn't get very far before all hell broke loose.

* * *

Dean found a map in the glove box that outlined a number of refugee centers, most of which were less than a hundred miles apart. The next one was even closer, so they figured they could stop there next, see if there were any working phones or at least some more gas.

He didn't like how empty this place felt. It wasn't just the lack of people and the overgrowth. It felt like anything alive was hiding.

"You think those things chased everything out?" he asked Cas, breaking the quiet of the drive.

"And killed and ate whatever failed to flee."

"Awesome."

Cas wanted to discuss the possible causes for their current situation, but given Dean's response to their conversation earlier that morning, he knew it wouldn't go well, not until he knew the facts. So he had nothing to say.

Somehow, they were cast into this place, and it effected him. The suffering he endured - the agony - had laid him low and made him lose all sense of self. He was no one, previously an angel of the lord who had a role and purpose. He had lost that. He had been so certain free will was the correct path that he sacrificed all these little parts of himself: making a deal with Crowley and breaking that same deal. The leviathan might've destroyed him, but he had torn enough holes in himself to let it happen. When he awoke along with the Prophet, he condemned himself to pacifism. He had made too many mistakes, failed too many times, and something had to change.

But angels never learned how to change. There was never any need before, after all.

But here, in this place, wherever they were, the pain and self-loathing were a memory. Their effects on him were curiously visible, no introspection required, which was good, as angels never learned much a about that either. He wasn't sure if it was clarity or just another punishment to endure, but it had happened in the blink of an eye.

There weren't many ways something like that could occur. Either the angels (or someone in a similar position, though as far as he knew, his Father was done with him) had done it, or they had been thrown into a different plane.

"Up ahead, turn left, then the first right," Dean said, abruptly interrupting his thoughts.

After a few minutes, they reached another module, though this one wasn't in good condition. At some point, a fire had struck, burning down one of the main walls, and the weather had done the rest. It was more than that, though. The vehicles there had been trashed. It looked like a riot had swept through the place.

"Let's park around back," Dean suggested.

"Are you speaking figuratively?" Cas asked.

"Yeah, I mean we should park in an alleyway or somewhere with some cover," Dean replied. "This looks like a rough neighborhood."

They were looking for parking when gunfire sounded, drawing their attention. 

"It came from over there," Dean said, pointing.

Cas did his best to navigate in the appropriate direction, but it soon became much easier as screams and growls filled the air. They finally came upon the cause: a group of zombies had gathered around a storefront, a few dead on the ground, but most gathered at the door, grunting to get in. Four people were inside, and one of them was injured.

Dean drew his machete and a long knife that he had tucked away in his jacket.

"Dean, what - "

"We can't leave them," Dean interrupted. "That girl's, what, twelve? Fourteen?"

Cas nodded.

"Drive around, see if there's anyone else," he said. "I'll be done by the time you get back."

"Be careful, Dean."

There were about ten undead bastards right at the door, but another ten or so littering the way. Dean made short work of them. They were much easier to take down than leviathan.

He cut a path to the door, but more and more kept appearing. They came out of the woodwork, from every building and alleyway, from dumpsters and cars, groaning and moaning. They were flimsy things, easy to cut down, but the sheer number of them was a problem. He only had two hands and one machete.

"If you're planning on leaving, now's the time!" Dean shouted through the door as he slashed two zombies through the head at the same time.

The largest man - a big blond with a scruffy brown beard - lifted the wounded member and carried him across his shoulders. The young girl lifted her pistols and came out guns blazing as the older woman - by the looks of it, her mother - opened the door and held it for them. Dean smiled a little; there was nothing in the world like a family that fought together.

Despite having killed twenty already, the road would soon be overrun with them. He wondered if the noise attracted them, because the gunshots seemed to be making the problem worse, not better.

"Oh, _shit_ ," Dean said.

The shops across the street had acted like a dam, forcing the undead to amble around them to reach the street, but they came nonetheless. He hadn't really had a plan - other than cutting a path to get the trapped people free - and he wished he had thought of an escape route. From the way the family stopped and backed up, he could only assume their home or car was up one of the now-overrun alleyways.

"We're fucked!" the large man yelled.

The younger girl kept shooting. She was a good shot, hitting each one in the head, most right in the eye. The older woman was handy with an axe, but it wasn't enough now that they were coming from all sides.

"Good of you to try," the older woman said to Dean.

"Not good enough," he replied.

Then the pickup truck burst in, slamming into four zombies as they close in, sending their rot bodies flying through the air, crashing into others, setting off a kind of cascade. The passenger-side door flew open.

"Get in!" Cas yelled.

The large man and the injured guy clambered in after the young girl, leaving Dean and the axe-woman outside. There wasn't enough space in for them.

"Follow me!" Dean said to her.

They hacked and slashed their way to the back of the vehicle. The cap door opened easily enough, but the zombies kept coming, gnashing their teeth and gurgling. The smell alone was overwhelming, oppressive. He wanted to hurl.

"GET IN!" Dean shouted.

She didn't argue about it, she literally jumped into the back, and sensing their escape he, for a brief moment, let his guard down. Something slimy came up against his neck as one of the things grabbed at him from the side. It was an awkward angle for his machete, and soon another one was coming from the other side. He slashed out widely to take care of the new attacker, but he struggled to loose the old one, which seemed frantic to take a bite out of him.

"Hurry up!" the woman shouted.

He tried to throw the thing off, but it was freaking strong, stronger than rotting flesh had any right to be. It was dangerously close to his ear when an arrow went clean through its temple.

He didn't think about it, didn't look around for a shooter, didn't wonder who just saved his ass. He shoved the corpse away and leapt inside the cab, dragging the bottom door shut.

"Drive, Cas!" he shouted. "Drive!"

He fumbled with securing the cab's top door, and afterwards, he slumped against the awkward piles of materials as the truck swerved this way and that.

"You okay?" he asked the woman.

"Yeah," she replied. "You?"

"Fine. I'm Dean."

"Maria," she replied. "Why did you help us?"

"Why?" he repeated. "Why the fuck not?"

"We have nothing," she said. "Our camp was just torn apart by some assholes who were armed to the teeth. We got out with minimal supplies and one car, so if you're - "

"I'm not looking for a gift basket," Dean interrupted. 

"Then why did you help us?" she demanded.

"Because you're still alive," he replied honestly. "You're the first living people we've seen in..."

He didn't finish his sentence. Technically, it had only been a day, but it felt like much longer.

"Right, well, thanks I guess," she said. "You have a camp?"

"No," he replied. "Just me, Cas, and this truck. We're looking for my brother and a friend of ours."

"Want some advice?" she asked in a tone that implied his answer did not matter. "Stop looking."

"What?"

"They're dead," she said. "Even if they're not dead, they're dead to you. Bury them. Forget about them. You'll never find them."

"Wow, I thought I was a pessimist."

"I'm serious," Maria said. "We spent... weeks? Months? Looking for my family. We stayed in this area even though there's nothing to scavenge. We had a chance to head south, avoid the cold, but we stayed. There was too much of a chance they'd be nearby. We starved through the colder weeks, had to steal from some poor smucks to keep from dying. All so we could look for a few people."

"You never found them?"

"One of my brothers," she replied. "He was a walker. I put him down."

"A walker?"

"A biter, a rotter," she said. "What do you call them?"

"Zombies."

She rolled her eyes. "Nobody calls them that."

The rode on in silence until the car came to a complete stop.

"Maria!" a man's voice came from the front. "Get the van and follow us."

"Thanks for the heads up, Frank," she growled. She turned to Dean. "You coming? Better than riding in here. No offense."

Dean nodded and followed her when she climbed out of the cab. She took out two waiting walkers with one swing, and he joined her. They put down half a dozen before the way to her minivan was clear. He climbed into the passenger side, and she got behind the wheel. They followed the truck to the highway, where there was enough room to pull off the shoulder without being on top of the trees.

He went to exit the car, but he froze when he heard the cocking of a gun.

Maria had drawn on him.

"What the hell?"

"You might be a nice guy," she said, her voice harsh and cynical. "You'd be the last one living I'd ever seen. It's too bad, but we could use a truck like yours. For saving us, I'll be nice. Let you keep your machete. How does that sound?"

"Fuck you," Dean replied.

"Get out of the car, and go stand by the trees. Do it, or we'll just kill you and leave your bodies right here. Do it now, and I'll let you keep your weapons. Haven't done that in a long time."

Dean grit his teeth as he got out, his hands raised and walked away, standing where she pointed. Soon Castiel joined him, and he was clearly less than pleased.

"Apparently they did not appreciate our help," the angel said.

"Oh we did," Frank replied. "But we appreciate your truck even more. She's real nice."

"We stole it," Dean said.

"These days, what isn't stolen, huh?" Maria asked. Then she turned to her friends. "Let's go."

"Hannah, you go on with Maria," Frank said. "Get the minivan. I'll take care of these two and take the truck."

"We don't need to," Maria said. "They don't have a camp. They won't come after us."

"How do you know that? Because pretty boy said so?" Frank asked. "Go."

The younger girl, Hannah, and Maria went back to the minivan, leaving good old Frank with a large revolver.

"Thanks, by the way," he said, giving them a wide, shit-eating grin. "We were gonners till you showed up."

BANG! BANG!

He hit Castiel square in the chest, twice, but of course, it had no effect. Frank's jaw dropped, and he froze just long enough for Cas to deck him across the face. Frank staggered back, and the angel pressed his advantage, hitting him again, this time in the stomach. Then he kneed him in the head, knocking him out, and casually took his gun.

"Nice one," Dean commented.

He drew his handgun and joined Cas as they flanked the minivan. To say the women were shocked would be an understatement. 

"What did you do to Frankie?" Hannah asked.

"He's not dead," Dean replied harshly. "Get out of the car."

"Please, we'll drive away and never both you again," Maria said. "Please, just let us go."

"Get out of the damn car," Dean repeated. "Now!"

They obliged, hands raised.

"Please, let my daughter go," Maria said as she circled around.

"Dean?" Cas asked warily.

"First, you two are gonna get the injured guy out of our damn truck," Dean began. "Than you're gonna take the douchebag who tried to kill us, and we're gonna go our separate ways."

"Frank's too heavy," Hannah protested. "Mom and I can barely lift David."

"Cas, can you get douchebag Frank here to the minivan?" the hunter asked.

The angel replied by tucking the gun into his trench coat and going over to Frank. Dean kept the gun trained on Maria and Hannah, though he doubted they would try anything. By the time they extracted the barely-conscious David, Cas had already opened the back of the minivan and dropped Frank inside.

Hannah had to get into the back to get David into a seat, but after a few tense moments, they succeeded. Maria then turned, held up her hands.

"Please, don't hurt my daughter," she said. 

"Don't plan to," Dean replied. 

"You all will remain unharmed so long as violence is not necessary," Cas added, raising his newly procured revolver.

Hannah began to shut the sliding door, and Maria went to the driver's side. Her daughter stopped mid-movement.

"You like pretzels?" she asked.

"I like pie," Dean replied. "Cas here likes pretzels, though."

The angel cast a confused glance Dean's way but said nothing. The young girl reached for something, and they both hoped that it wasn't a weapon. Dean might've talked a good game, but could he shoot a kid like her? He hadn't been able to kill Emma the Amazon, though that situations had additional complications. She had come to kill him, and he didn't pull the trigger. 

"Here," Hannah said, tossing a small tote bag at them. "For saving us."

Then she slammed the door shut, and the minivan pulled away. Castiel stowed his new gun and opened the tote bag.

"Do you believe she'd attempt to poison us?" he asked.

"What?" Dean replied, dropping his gun but not stowing it. "Hell, no."

Cas revealed the contents: pretzels, a few bottles of water, and a two single-serving cherry pies. They were the kind Dean liked to pick up at gas stations. 

"Worth it!" the hunter declared as he swooped in and grabbed both pies victoriously. "Expired in December 2010. You think they're still good?"

"Not if the wrapper is to be believed."

"Right, they're probably fine," Dean said. "You wanna drive?"

Without a waiting for an answer, he grabbed the tote bag, stowed his gun, and went for the passenger's side. Cas didn't mind driving, but he found the events of the day troubling. How was a world without the supernatural more dangerous then a world constantly under its influence? Why did the people that they save try to steal their truck? And why did one of them provide them pie?

"Cas, come on!" Dean called from the car. 

The timing was fortuitous, for the sound of groans and moans was suddenly getting stronger, likely drawn by the gunfire. So he got into the driver's seat and started the car.

"Mmm-mmm good," the hunter said, smacking his lips as he chomped on the pie.

For a moment, Cas became distracted by the hunter's lips. They were chapped and covered in pie innards, but their shape and contours were beautiful. Though he couldn't quite admit it to himself, the fact that Dean was enjoying himself was what brought the angel true joy.

"Walkers!" Dean said, his mouth full of pie. "Six o'clock!"

Luckily, the angel spotted the approaching zombies in the rearview mirror, and it alleviated his confusion. He put the car in drive and pulled onto the road, heading in the opposite direction as the minivan.

With the hunter thoroughly distracted by his pie and the angel distracted by his hunter, neither one of them noticed the station wagon tailing them.


	4. Revelation Anticipating

It took Carol two hours to convince Daryl to keep after the pickup. Luckily, they were headed north, so they didn't have to change course until the men turned east onto the highway. Daryl nearly chewed fiercely at his lip before cursing loudly and following them.

"I thought the last people I tried to save were decent," he grunted. "I was wrong."

"Last time, you were alone," Carol pointed out.

She put her hand on his arm, and he relaxed slightly.

"This won't be anything like last time," she said reassuringly.

"How's that?"

She explained her plan, and he bit clean through his chapped lips, letting it bleed. She gently dabbed at his blood with a makeshift handkerchief as he drove. It made him feel juvenile.

"It's much cuter when you worry about me without bleeding," she commented.

"Yeah, well," he replied. "People ain't always worth it."

"If those men were anything like the wolves or the people you met, they would've killed those people," she said. "You think we'd do any different than they did?"

"Would've left'em on the side of the road for starters," Daryl replied darkly.

"Maybe," she said. "You didn't have to shoot that walker, but you did it to save one of them. Because that's who you are. I'm guessing that they helped those trapped people because that's who they are."

"And almost got dead for their trouble," he replied.

"Almost."

They didn't talk after that. The pickup stopped at one more abandoned refugee camp, then headed north until it started to get dark. Carol assumed they must be sleeping in the truck, because all they did was pull off-road and park.

"We need to circle around them," Carol said. "Maybe they have a camp nearby."

So they wasted an hour in the dark, looking for any signs of human life. There was nothing, but Daryl didn't mind so much because he snagged a few squirrels for dinner.

"Think they spotted us yet?" he grunted when they finally agreed to park and sleep. 

"Don't know," she replied. "I'll take first watch."

He didn't argue. He just climbed into the back seat and stretched out as much as he could, wondering if he was making another stupid choice. That was his last thought before he drifted to sleep.

* * *

Castiel watched over Dean for most of the night, only teleporting away for a few minutes at a time to visit angelic sites. He felt the presence of the power of heaven, but it was only traces. It had been decades since another angel had visited.

He never stayed away from the hunter for more than five minutes at a time. He attempted to listen to all the angelic frequencies and found nothing, not even the cupids. It wasn't surprising. He wasn't expecting to find anything different from the night previous.

He found himself drawn to watching the hunter sleep, his normally scornful face relaxed and peaceful. It was much easier to tell Dean about the pain, the agony, he absorbed from Sam than about the dozen or so other things that he suddenly felt.

Some of them not so suddenly.

The angel had an enduring love for both Winchesters, the kind that binds brothers-in-arms together, but what he felt for Dean was different. Deeply different. Though he wasn't entirely certain, he believed what he felt was true desire. _Sexual_ desire.

It was a disturbing experience for an angel whose sexual experience was limited to a woman who rescued him when he had amnesia. It had taken him time to allow his body to react to her touch, and even longer to understand that what he was experiencing was passion. Not that he hadn't experienced passion before, just not sexual passion.

Was that what he was feeling for Dean Winchester?

The hunter stirred in his sleep, and Castiel put away the idea. He needed to figure out where they were, but the work required would likely take months. In the meantime, he needed to find a place that could protect Dean's very mortal body. If Dean was right about his disconnect from Heaven sapping his power, Cas would also have to deal with that particular limitation. The last time he had been severed from heaven was during the Apocalypse, and though it took nearly a year, he slowly lost his angelic attributes till had no more power than the average human.

That made everything very, very simple. They had to return home, and they had maybe a year before he lost his angelic abilities. 

It was nearly dawn when he heard someone calling for help, accompanied by a cacophony of groans. He shook Dean awake and drew his angel blade.

"Trouble?" Dean asked sleepily.

Cas nodded his head, yes. 

The hunter became immediately alert, launching himself out of slumber and grabbing his machete. Cas left the vehicle as Dean struggled to get his boots back on.

Three zombies - or walkers, as Dean claimed everyone called them - were following an older woman. She was lithe, quick, and terrified. 

It was immensely satisfying to impale her attackers and watch them fall. She collapsed to the ground, sobbing in relief, and he wiped off and stowed his blade before kneeling beside her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Thank you, thank you. More... more are coming," she said. "Too many."

"How many's too many?" Dean asked. "Ten? Twenty? A hundred?"

"Ten," the woman replied. "Probably more by now."

"You got somewhere to go?" Dean asked. "Car, house, anything like that?"

"I was separated from my group," she replied.

The groans and gasps of approaching undead indicated far more than ten.

"Come on, we got a ride over here," Dean said.

"Dean," Cas said warningly. "Last time didn't end well."

"Last time?" she repeated with terror in her voice.

"We helped some people out yesterday, and they tried to kill us and take our truck," Dean replied. "You got any plans like that?"

"No, no, I swear," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Please, help me. Don't leave me here."

Cas helped her up and led her back to the truck while Dean cut down the three walkers that closed in on them. Then he ran for it, dragging himself into the passenger side as it started it up. Cas drove at a languid pace, but it was enough to lose the walkers. 

"I'm Dean," he said. "This is Cas."

"I'm Carol," she replied. "You saved my life."

Castiel found her compelling, but there was something off about her. Was she feigning fear? Tears? Gratitude? He dismissed it outright. This entire world was off to him.

"Listen, Carol, we can drop you wherever," Dean said. "But we came out here looking for my brother and a friend of ours, so if you've got an ambush or attack dogs waiting for us, save us the trouble, huh?"

"I swear," she said. "I swear, it's nothing like that. I just need to get back my friend. He's driving a station wagon. I swear."

"Dean," Cas said warningly.

The hunter backed off.

"We'll find your friend," the angel said to Carol. "Do you know which way?"

"We were supposed to meet at a picnic area a few miles up this road," she said. 

"You said he was driving what exactly?"

"A station wagon," she replied. "It's green... I think. Or dark green. It's hard to tell with all the muck."

"That one?" Cas asked, pointing ahead.

She had to lean forward between the seats to get a good look, but then she replied, "Yes, that's it. That's the one."

"Doesn't seem like he's back yet," Dean said. "You gonna be okay if we leave you here?"

"Yes, you've done more than anyone else would," she replied. "I would offer you something, but I dropped my bag when they started chasing me."

"All that we ask is that you do not attempt to steal our only means of transport," Cas said flatly. 

Dean stopped just behind the car, but before Carol could move to leave, a tall, shaggy-haired man appeared in front of them with a loaded crossbow pointed straight for them.

Dean asked Carol, "This your friend?"

"You gonna let her go!" the shaggy man said. "Let her go, and I won't put a bolt in your eye!"

"Daryl, wait!" Carol pleaded. "It's okay. They're okay!"

"Why don't you come out here?" Daryl asked.

It wasn't a request.

Dean rolled his eyes, but he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out. Cas followed. How could they help anyone here if everyone was a predator?

"You all right?" Daryl asked Carol quietly.

"Daryl, this is Cas and Dean," Carol said. "They saved me."

"How's that?" Daryl asked.

"And they don't have anywhere to go," she added.

"When did either of us say that?" Cas asked.

"We didn't," Dean replied. "And I'm guessing we didn't rescue Carol here, either, did we?"

The angel hated when humans excluded him from the conversation, but at this moment, he knew he had missed something. Carol straightened up and wiped her tears away, and everything about her changed.

"They're good, Daryl," she said.

"We'll see," he said. "How many walkers have you killed?"

"Dean killed three this morning," Cas said. "I had not thought to count them as they fell, so - "

"Too many to count," Dean interrupted.

"How many people have you killed?" Daryl asked, his bow trained on Dean.

"Me? Shit, I dunno," he replied honestly. "But nobody who didn't deserve it. Killers. Cas here has smited a few himself."

"Only when ordered."

"You a soldier or something?" Daryl asked.

"I was," the angel replied.

"Good, then shut up and answer my last question. Why?"

"Because we wanna live," Dean said. "Because before all this shit happened, we used to help people, even when it meant putting our asses on the line."

"And for free will," Cas added. "Team Free Will. That's what we fight for."

Dean left out the monsters and the demons because he had a sneaking suspicion that the man in front of him didn't believe in that kind of thing, even though he lived in a world where the dead walked around eating people.

"So, can we go?" Dean asked. "Now that we've answered your questions."

Daryl lowered the crossbow, but he didn't unload it.

"You got someplace to go?" he asked.

"What's it to you?" Dean shot back.

"Because we do," Carol replied. "We could always use good people. It can be hard to tell."

"So, first you lie to us about being in danger, now you want us to go home with you?" Dean asked skeptically. "Why should we believe you?"

Daryl threw something at Cas, who caught it out of habit. It was a large wallet filled with nothing but pictures.

"Photos," Daryl grunted. "We got walls and houses and electricity. We're low on food, and we lost a lot of good people recently."

Cas handed over the banded wallet, which were like amateur shots of the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot, too blurry to make out if anything in it was real. He tossed them back to Daryl, who caught it with one hand. 

"Pirates?" Dean asked flippantly.

"Raiders," Carol replied. "Called themselves the wolves. They destroy camps."

"Or they did, till they tried to take us out," Daryl replied, lifting his crossbow. "Look, I'd just as soon as leave you two assholes out here, but Carol thinks you're worth something. We ain't gonna beg or drag you there. We're gonna get in our car and pull out. Either you follow us or you don't. Up to you."

Carol gave them a sad smile before she went to the driver's side of the station wagon. Daryl backed away toward the passenger side as the engine revved up, his crossbow trained on Dean, and it reminded Dean about the arrow that saved his ass the day before.

"I got one question for you," Dean said. "You see us yesterday at all?"

"Think that arrow came from nowhere?" Daryl shot back.

With that, he ducked back into the station wagon, and it drove off.

"Damnit," Dean said. "Come on Cas, we gotta follow."

Castiel didn't ask why - or what Daryl meant about 'that arrow' - until after the truck caught up with them. When he inquired after it, Dean shook his head. 

"That guy took out one of those things," he replied. "It was all over me, and I couldn't get it with my machete. I was so damn close to being in the car. Then, boom! Right through the skull."

"You said nothing about it."

"I hadn't thought about it," Dean said. "I mean, I knew it didn't come from nowhere, but as soon as it hit, I got in the car. After those douchebags double-crossed us. I dunno, it didn't seem important."

"And now we're following two strangers," Cas said. "At least one purposely misled us."

"Yeah."

"That woman lied convincingly," he said. "Perhaps they've lied again."

"Maybe, but I don't think so."

There was a long silence where Cas thought on that.

"Do you have a reason for trusting them?"

"Not everyone here can be douchebags," Dean replied.


	5. Locus Amoenus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author's note** : This chapter has backstory from both shows. I've taken some minor liberties with the date on the Walking Dead (which was never addressed on the show).

Dean knew that they were heading into murky waters. He'd learned exactly two things about their new "friends." One, they're human, and two, despite living in a zombie apocalypse, they didn't believe in the supernatural. 

Maybe that second impression came from Cas more than the strangers in the other car. The angel kept insisting that a parasitic super-virus caused the zombies by reactivating the nervous system after death so long as the brain - or rather, parts of the brain - remained intact. Dean cut him off when he started pontificating over which portions were involved in triggering both physical motion and insatiable hunger. Wraiths, kitsune, and all the other monsters that cracked open human skulls for their prize taught him more than he ever wanted to know about brains. He didn't need to know anymore.

"We need to get our story straight," Dean said, determined to prevent Cas from continuing his monologue about the dynamics of post-mortem neurochemistry. "We need a plan."

"A plan for what, exactly?" Cas asked with an edge to his voice. "To escape these people or to help them?"

"Yes," Dean replied stubbornly. " _And_ how to find Sammy and Kev."

Silence followed this pronouncement, probably because Cas was still thinking about brains.

"We gotta keep the angel thing under wraps," Dean continued. "Along with the leviathans and Dick Roman. Which means we gotta have an explanation ready for you and your... weirdness and why we're looking for Kevin and Sam."

"A simple lie," Cas suggested. "That will be easiest to remember."

"Right, we split up to scavenge a few days ago, and they didn't show yesterday, so we went looking for them," he said. "Good. Now we gotta figure out how to make them think you're a regular guy."

"They already do."

"Cas, you don't eat or sleep," Dean pointed out. "We stay with them long enough, they'll notice."

* * *

Carol didn't know what was going on with Daryl, but she knew he hadn't regressed to the man she'd first met outside Atlanta. He tried to do that before, back on Hershel's farm when they discovered Sophia had been in the Walker Barn since the day she had gotten lost and all his efforts searching for her amounted to nothing. He had tried to push Carol and everyone else away, but it was too late. He didn't need her to remind him that he was family; it was already ingrained in his bones. 

Daryl had relayed the facts of his recent brush with misfortune to her in short, clipped sentences, but he left out all the important details. She resorted to guessing the rest of it from his recent behavior because the only other option was trying to get him to talk, which wouldn't end well. So she'd settled for conjecture... but not for much longer.

They drove in silence for a long stretch. She considered bringing up what she'd been going through, but every time she thought of something to say, she couldn't bring herself to speak it aloud. It was like she had nothing but pre-apocalypse cliches in her head, and she couldn't use one of those, not even with Daryl.

So she focused on the road.

"You gonna say it?" he asked.

She hadn't expected him to speak, which was doubly odd because she usually read him like a book. She was so surprised that she didn't really process what he'd said.

"You're like a hamster on a damn wheel," he said, exasperated. "Come on, out with it."

"Me? What about you?" she deflected.

"Nah, this ain't about me."

"It's not," she admitted. "I don't know where to start."

"The wolves?" 

Daryl might not socialize like other people, but he was a perceptive bastard when he wanted to be. She wasn't sure if she liked or hated that about him.

"Do you know how many people I've killed?" she asked.

"Nobody who didn't deserve it," he replied. "Nobody who didn't need to die."

"I don't know how many," she said, the words falling out of her mouth. "Twenty? Thirty?"

"That bothers you," he said. 

It wasn't a question or a judgment, just a statement. He understood, and knowing that much alleviated whatever it was that had been eating away at her. Somehow, that was enough for now.

"Don't let it," he added.

"I don't know how."

She immediately regretted uttering those words. It had been a long time since she admitted to feeling that kind of helplessness, and she detested it. She hated that this world could make her as hard as stone and as cold as ice but still _get_ to her.

"Think about who," he said simply. "Whenever you can't let it go, think about who you saved. Kept Judith and Tyreese alive after the prison. Pulled all our asses outta the fire at Terminus. Wouldn't be here without you."

She bit her lip. She hadn't told anyone what had happened to Lizzie and Myka on the road to Terminus, and she doubted Tyreese had told anyone - even his own sister - before he died. It was one of the few things she hoped to take to her grave. 

But he was right. She hadn't killed anybody that didn't absolutely need to die, whether it was a twelve-year-old who murdered her own sister because she couldn't tell the living from the dead any longer or a raider hacking apart a new friend with a machete.

The conversation ended there, right where it needed to, and she was grateful that Daryl held his tongue. If she tried to talk about this with anyone else, they would've plied her with platitudes, gratitude, and nonsense. That was one reason she had been so keen to avoid the subject. 

So she let the silence settle between them as she drove, long enough for both of them to relax. Then she broached the question.

"What about you, Pookie?" she asked. "Anything you want off your chest?"

He scoffed in reply, and she was about to press the issue when he leaned forward in his seat.

"Hold up," he said.

They planned to take the state highway north, as it would get them to Alexandria within the day but that would have to change. Even from a mile away, it was clear the onramp was impassable. 

"This was supposed to be clear," she said.

"Was," he replied. "Just a few days ago. Ain't no accident, neither."

He was right. Someone had barricaded the onramp with a bunch of old cars. It was possible that another group of survivors did it to keep a walker herd on the highway, but she doubted it. It was far more likely that predators blocked the ramp and now were lying in wait for a hapless group of passerbys.

"We go around, then," she said.

Carol tensed as they continued. Had they known about the blocked ramp in advance, they would've given this place a wide berth, but now they had to drive right by it without any cover. She didn't like the idea of someone catching their scent. 

Carol's senses went on full alert, and more than once she had to remind herself that they had two strangers following them on purpose. Daryl was too busy keeping a wary eye out for trouble to deal with the map, but she had put together their route and remembered enough of the details to be concerned. The other major roads were either blocked with traffic snarls or had areas that were overrun with walkers. Not only would they have to double back and watch their backs, but they'd have to do it while taking back roads. 

It would take days.

"You want to take over?" she asked.

"I guess."

"We need to pick an alternate route and a place to camp for the night," she replied. "And we should warn the others."

Daryl huffed at the suggestion, but he was definitely less peeved about the pair than he had been this morning. Either they were growing on him, or he was in a better mood. 

Either way, that was good because Carol had the sinking feeling that a storm was blowing their way.

* * *

Castiel sensed something was wrong. Not the lack of supernatural in the world nor the parasitic super-virus that animated corpses; no, this was a closer, more dangerous threat, at least for the angel, his hunter, and their two... sort of allies.

Perhaps that was what was bothering him. They had risked their lives to rescue several perfectly normal-looking people who repaid them with attempted murder, yet the unexpected betrayal had not prevented Dean from trusting the next strangers they met, even though Carol easily duped them. He was certain that if he pressed the issue, Dean would insist on the soundness of his judgment, and nothing the angel said would change his mind.

Luckily, both his powers and his sanity remained in tact, so he could keep watch over Dean day and night. Should Carol, Daryl, or anyone else attempt to harm his hunter, he would obliterate them. 

The station wagon's turn signal began to flash.

"Something's up," Dean said.

They were on a stretch of road that crossed a wide, flat field that allowed them to see a quarter mile in every direction. It would be far more logical to assume that one of them had to relieve themselves, but he was certain if he mentioned this, Dean would insist on his perspective.

And he would probably be correct, too.

Cas thought his brush with insanity had taught him about humanity, but he possessed no more insight now then the day he raised Dean from hell. As he pulled over behind the other car, he wondered if this would ever be remedied or if he would forever remain a sore thumb with no discernment of the human spirit.

* * *

This was all bullshit.

Daryl couldn't get that out of his head, like a damn mantra.

They should be back in Alexandria, tucked safely in their beds. Or Carol should be at least. But no, she was out here with him with a damn target on her back, all because he couldn't cope with the walls.

They spent the last of the daylight looking over their shoulders while scouring the back roads for any place they could hold up for the night. If it had been just Carol and him, they'd've made camp in less than an hour, but four people with two full-sized vehicles didn't have a lot of options.

They _should've_ split up, but Carol was real stubborn about keeping together. So they did, even though it wasn't the smart play, and he didn't say a word. Only reason they were in this mess was his cabin fever, so he didn't have a leg to stand on. Not with this.

Somehow, the weird guy in the trench coat found a place. Most of it was a ruin burned down to the frame, but the adjoining garage had survived, despite the scorch marks on its exterior. It was easy to miss, blending in with the rubble and obscured by overgrowth. Most people wouldn't look at this place twice; hell, Daryl might've passed it by. And that would've been a shame.

It was a little tight, but they got both cars parked inside, and the charred door shut tight, like it'd never moved.

He assumed they'd be hold up in their vehicles taking turns keeping watch on the roof, but when he looked up to get a feel for the kind of perch they might have, he saw Carol and the somewhat normal guy climbing a flight of stairs.

The damn garage had a second floor with a full studio apartment, complete with plumbing and a small generator on its last legs. The low ceiling made it feel much smaller than it was, and the boarded-off windows didn't help things.

These two must've been luckiest sons of bitches he'd met since the world ended.

Daryl didn't know why he thought that, but he couldn't shake the impression. It would've been so easy to think they'd lied about their familiarity with the area to lure them into a trap. But that didn't hold. Something about Dean and Cas... it was like they hadn't been steeped in a world where the walking dead paled in comparison to a survivor willing to do anything to live another day.

To avoid the reeling thoughts in his head, he turned his focus to the windows. Dusk was fading fast, which gave him the cover of darkness while he yanked off the boards. Nobody said a word about it, so he kept to himself, eventually ducking downstairs to double-check that the door was secure.

Except that wasn't the real reason. This place got him thinking about a rundown shack he'd wound up in after everything fell apart at the prison. He'd lost everybody but Beth, and - 

Damn if remembering that didn't bring it all back like it happened yesterday. Burning down that stupid shack and flipping it off as they left, not a care in the world. Crashing for the night in a funeral home of all places. Walkers flooding the place. Him drawing them off and yelling at her to run for it. Escaping by the hair of his teeth and racing after her, finding her bag on the ground. Him missing her and the people who took her by seconds. Chasing after that damn car for he didn't know how long. Collapsing when his legs gave out. The weight of losing his last friend. Being more alone then he'd ever been in his life.

But that was nothing, nothing compared to seeing her again, alive and well. After all was said and done, he'd found her, and they got her back. She wasn't more than an arm's length away when the shot rang out and her blood spattered his clothing. 

Yeah, he took out her killer seconds later, too little too late. And as a dozen guns trained on him, all he did was stand there looking down at Beth's body, his weapon down and his hands shaking. He didn't even fight the tears. All he could think was, had she made it to her eighteenth birthday? 

She hadn't, but he hadn't known that back then. He didn't know until a few days ago when he glimpsed Diana's office calendar. When he saw the month and year, he didn't believe it and confronted Diana about it. But she assured him that the date was correct, holding her ground no matter how angry he got. Eugene apparently overheard and took it upon himself to confirm the date using the stars or planets or some shit. 

The long and the short of it was that Beth Greene turned eighteen at midnight tonight. Or she would have, had she lived. 

He'd almost forgotten that. Almost. But now it came back twice as hard. He had to lean his forehead into the nearest wall to keep his feet under him. 

That's when he smelled something burning, and his eyes snapped to the stairs. His feet figured out he had to move before his brain did, and he was halfway to Carol before he recognized the scent. It wasn't smoke, just the smell of heat coming off a stove that'd been cold for too long. She must've gotten the generator up and started cooking.

No longer concerned for her safety, he sat on the stairs. There was no need for strangers to see him teary-eyed and panicked. He only meant to take a moment, but their voices caught his attention.

"Times like this, I wonder how I manage without electricity?" Carol said with a hint of slyness.

She was testing them, fishing for something, but Daryl couldn't think what for.

"We've had to go without for so long, it's like magic to me," Dean replied. "Lately, it's like we can't catch a break, so I'll take whatever we get."

"Food has posed a bigger problem," Cas spoke up. "We had a... uh, contamination issue."

"Putting it mildly," Dean said. 

"My group had it the same," she replied. "Until Alexandria. It was one of those eco-communities built to be fully self-sustaining, finished a few months before everything fell apart. The walls went up not long after that. Electricity, water, indoor plumbing. It's... like a dream."

" _Loci Amoeni_ ," Cas said.

Carol was damn good at handling people, but even she balked at the oddities out of this guy's mouth. Utter silence fell, and even Daryl felt the discomfort that followed.

"Humanity recreates Eden," Cas said a moment later. "But since a true return to innocence is a known impossibility, the focus shifts to an acceptable external phenomenon - to the human mind - replicates the purity of an untainted spirit. The promise of a _Locus Amoenus_ , an idealized place of safety, abundance, comfort, and freedom where everything will be better... it can keep hope alive and rekindle faith. It has for most of human history, in complete contradiction to all logic, reason, and learned patterns. The more you know it's an impossibility, the more you tell yourselves it's real, and the moment you arrive, everything will be better."

"Think we're lying about Alexandria?" Daryl interjected as he joined them.

The man's face contorted in confusion, and his childlike expression threw Daryl off. 

"He always says stuff like that," Dean countered. "You'll get used to it."

"Alexandria ain't perfect," Daryl said. "Neither are we."

"You've lost people," Cas replied. 

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Good people. Too many to count."

"Too many died bloody," Dean added. "And never the people who deserve it."

That was all they needed to say to prove themselves to Daryl. They knew what it was like to be exhausted and covered in blood, trying to carry a friend to safety, even when it's already over and nothing can be done to save them. They knew loss like the snow knew the cold, so deeply that it was an inescapable part of them. 

Daryl felt the corners of his mouth turn up slightly, though smiling was the last thing on his mind. Maybe Carol had been right about them. They weren't so bad, even the one who spouted philosophical crap in monotone.

He didn't believe in much, but if he did... if he did believe that there was any kind of greater power out there that gave a damn, then he'd also believe that it owed them something. And if it was waiting for some precious moment - some cosmically just timing - to pony up, then tonight at midnight seemed right.

Daryl kept that thought to himself and turned the conversation to shifts for keeping watch. One way or another, tomorrow would be a bitch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's end note** : Apologies for the long break between chapters! Hopefully the length will make up for it... I hope you enjoyed this latest installment!


	6. Feel the Quiet

Carol didn't expect to sleep, not in an untested hideaway with two strangers, no matter how decent they seemed. Yet, somehow, as soon as she shut her eyes, she was out like a light. It felt as if only a few seconds had passed before Daryl was shaking her awake for second watch.

She and Dean took positions at opposite windows. She wasn't sure what to expect from him, but he sat with his back upright and said nothing, just like Daryl. That made it much easier to focus on the darkness outside and search for any lurking dangers. 

For a windless night, there was a lot of rustling brush, but it was otherwise uneventful straight through till morning. So much so that she found herself marveling at the weak blue light of the dawn.

What the _hell_ had gotten into her?

Thankfully, she wasn't left alone with her musings for long, as Daryl rose with the sun. Soon they would be back on the now-long road home, and there wasn't time for lingering thoughts.

Cas got up moments after Daryl, his trench coat barely ruffled, despite having slept in it. He seemed oddly sharp for someone waking up, which made her wonder if he had slept at all.

Dean asked Cas to take over, and he answered with a wide-eyed nod before stepping in as lookout, effectively relieving them both. 

The rest of them cleaned up and packed the cars. Then she gave the place one last going-over and found a few odds and ends - two thermal blankets, a first aid kit, and a handful of canned goods - scattered in random hiding places, like under floorboards or tucked in cabinet nooks.

She took inventory, even though she already knew that this trip wasn't worth the gas it burned. She had hoped that it'd shake Daryl out of this brooding fog, but from the look on his face this morning, it had the opposite effect.

A rushed of hushed tones caught her attention as Daryl and Cas came down the stairs.

"Something happening? Carol asked.

"People," Daryl spat the word as if it were a curse.

"How many?" she asked.

"Two maybe. Weren't even trying to be quiet."

"Eight," Cas said abruptly.

"You saw _eight_?" Carol asked.

Cas's expression became hard to read, and his voice, strained. He answered, "Well, uh, no, I didn't _see_ eight, but - "

"In the ballpark?" Dean asked as he joined them from their truck.

On the surface, everything seemed natural, but Carol sensed something off, though she couldn't put her finger on what. It was like Dean was projecting a second, silent direction: _Whatever you do, do NOT tell them what you're thinking._

Suspicion rose inside her like a serpent, hissing mistrust and caution. 

Then Cas began, "Given an average decibel level for a functioning motorcycle and the environmental acoustics of the terrain, there were at least four combustion engines consistent with motorcycles - "

"Cas, we got it: eight," Dean interrupted. He then turned to Carol and Daryl, "Trust me, he's right. And if you ask, he will go on and on."

"You _heard_ all that?" Daryl asked.

He sounded more impressed than skeptical.

"I, uh... have sensitive ears," Cas replied.

"Think we can get around them?" Dean asked.

"Nah, the two I saw were close," Daryl replied. "We leave now, they spot us."

"Even on foot?" she asked.

"If we're quiet, maybe not," Daryl said. "But then what? We ain't walking to Alexandria."

"Could scope them out," Dean suggested. 

"Try and find a way around them," Carol added. "Or wait for them to move on."

"Either way, I want a good look at them," Dean said.

Carol wanted a good look, too. A group with four motorcycles and enough fuel to run them likely had resources. They could be a threat or possible allies.

She shook her head clear. Allies? They never had that kind of luck, and there wasn't any reason to expect that to change any time soon.

* * *

Castiel missed his insanity. At least, that was what Dean had called it.

It hadn't been pleasant, but it provided structure and purpose. He had taken Sam Winchester's burden - his memories of centuries of torment in Hell - to save him so that he, in turn, could help Dean stop the leviathans. It was an act of equal parts sacrifice and penance; after all, he was the one who freed those monsters from Purgatory and risked Sam's sanity in the same gambit.

When he witnessed the magnitude of the fallout from his mistakes, he could only wonder, _Why am I still alive?_ And then the answer came to him: he lived to suffer, to pay for his misdeeds. The horror and terror of those memories were his punishment, and as painful as it had been to survive, it had given him a reason to live.

Even after he woke in the fog of madness that followed, he possessed a solace that fueled an inner calmness and strengthened him. It reminded him of the first moment he existed. There was nothing but the sound of his name - _Castiel_ \- like a herald's trumpet, and without knowing how, he opened his eyes and saw... everything. Well, everything that had been created before the angels, anyway. Even then, the expanse of creation was captivating, breathtaking, beautiful... long before those words existed, it was true.

Humans weren't the only ones who longed for a return to Eden.

His abrupt ejection back to so-called sanity had restored his mind and his will, but it exacted a price on his heart. He had felt it immediately, but he had no idea how deep that pain went until he feigned sleep to maintain his human facade. With Carol keeping watch just a few feet from him, he couldn't risk even the subtlest of his abilities, so he was forced to lay still and silence for hours.

At first, all he could do was think and think and think, and when he ran out of thoughts to district himself, there was nothing but the sensation of something furious and hungry gnawing away at him from the inside out.

Perhaps that was why Cas wasn't in the mood to be patient when his human counterparts began to debate the means to assess the strangers outside. The obvious solution was to leave the entire situation to Castiel, but there was no way to convince Carol and Daryl that, not so long as they thought he was human. And Dean had insisted on that particular illusion. 

Everything would've been much easier if he had kept his mouth shut when he first sensed the approaching danger. Instead, he blurted a warning and attracted the nearest human - Daryl - to the window. That was why he was stuck in this ridiculous conversation.

Hoping to protect at least one of them, he abruptly suggested, "Someone should stay here."

"Can one of you cover us from upstairs?" Carol asked.

"You mean like a sniper?" Dean responded.

Before anyone answered, Dean's eyes drifted to Castiel, and Carol's and Daryl's were soon to follow. It did nothing to temper his anger.

"Got riffle in the wagon," Daryl said. "Think you can handle it?"

The very last thing he wanted was to stay behind when Dean was going into the woods to spy on unknown quantities armed with nothing more than a handgun and a machete. 

"Yes," the angel replied stiffly.

When their new friends busied themselves gathering additional weapons from their vehicle, Dean grabbed Cas's arm and pulled him aside.

"You got enough mojo to go all invisible man?" he asked quietly.

It was a strange question, but easy enough to answer. "Yes, but - "

"Good," Dean interrupted. "Once we're out of view, leave the riffle - "

"And follow you," Cas said, completing his thought.

"Only if the coast is clear," Dean said. "Make sure there's not a small army lying in wait."

"You mean the living or the dead?" 

"Both," the hunter replied gruffly. 

Cas nodded his head and gritted his teeth. This had all the makings of a trying day.

* * *

It was a shit plan. The only other option was to hold up until the danger passed, and the thought of sitting on his ass one second longer made him want to crawl out of his skin. 

So shit plan it was.

He didn't want to wait another second anticipating or talking, so as soon as he handed off the riffle to their would-be sniper, he raised his crossbow and headed out, pushing through the trees fast and silent, not bothering to look over his shoulder. Carol would be on his heels, or near enough, and she was all the backup he'd need. So why bother checking if their third wheel was in tow?

Not like it took a tracker anyway. These people were riding heavy-duty dirt bikes; a drunk idiot could follow this trail in the dark. 

Five minutes on foot and he could hear them yelling their heads off.

He found decent cover behind an old oak within earshot. He wasn't going to risk getting closer until he knew what he was getting into. 

"Listen, listen! We don't have camp!" a woman yelled.

"Oh, come on," a man said calmly. "You three are clean as daisies. No way you've been on the move scavenging for more than a day. You must have someplace to hang your hats."

"She's not lying!" a man yelled. "We don't have a camp!"

BANG!

Daryl's blood turned cold as the screams echoed. 

"Either one of you want to follow in your friend's footsteps?" the calm man asked. "Then go ahead! Lie to me again!"

Then everything went quiet for minute or so, broken only by sobs.

"I told you," the calm man continued. "Everything you have belongs to Negan. _You_ belong to Negan. Everyone you know belongs to Negan, too. They just don't know it yet."

His knuckles went white against his bow and only got tighter every time he heard that damn name. His blood went form ice to boiling, roaring in his ears and spurring him to his feet. Whatever or whoever Negan was needed to die, here and now.

Fingers grabbed at his shoulder, and he spun around quick, glowering at the contact. Carol's expression was telling, but she didn't know. She hadn't been there the last time. She hadn't heard what those people had said or seen what they'd done. She knew Negan was bad news, but not like he did. If she had, she would've been jumping at the chance to nail this bastard, too.

Before he could do anything else, rapid gunfire broke out, and he instinctively went for cover, pulling Carol with him. Not that it made a difference; wherever the shooting was coming from, it wasn't nearby. Not near enough to be hiding in the bushes, anyway.

"Shit! It's the trucks!" the no-longer-calm man yelled. "You and you, with me!"

All but one of the bikes pulled off, and without warning, Dean bolted towards the clearing. 

"Damn it," Daryl said, rushing after him.

It was a fool thing to do, racing in without knowing what was waiting for them, but damned if he let him do it alone.

Dean dropped the guy on the bike with a headshot, but the rider's two cronies were armed with semi-automatics and weren't shy about using them. The spray of bullets forced Dean to fall back for cover. Daryl loosed a bolt to give him the edge, clipping one of them in the arm, but he had to duck before he could load up for another shot.

The uninjured guy ceased fire and began to make his way to Dean. Even though his blood was pumping, Daryl kept his head. All he needed was a little patience, and he'd put a bolt through this guy's eye.

So he waited for his shot.

But the guy abruptly changed course. The two people they'd captured had tackled his injured counterpart, wrestling him to the ground. 

"Get off him!" 

The Negan-supporter turned hard, cursing and threatening the captives, as if completely unaware that the gun couldn't help him if it was pointed the wrong way. Dean struck first, rushing headlong at the guy with a machete, stabbing him through the heart.

Daryl provided cover for Carol as she went in and delivered a killing blow to the last assailant before pulling him off his would-be captives. 

"Those your people?" Dean asked, indicating the not-far-off shooting.

Needless to say, they were wary of new faces. The fact that not-too-far-off gunfire continued didn't help matters.

"Are those your people?" Dean repeated.

"N-no!" the woman said. "Our people aren't out here. I swear!"

Dean took off in the direction of the gunfight. Carol managed to grab hold of him as he passed by.

"What you doing?" she asked.

"It's Cas!" Dean replied. 

That's all he said before he was booking it out of the clearing.

Yeah, this was a really shit plan.


End file.
